Are our societies ready for a real democracy, that is a direct vote on all issues type of self-governing rule where anything can be put up to a vote including votes for execution of members of the society?
I think we are; unless you can point out politicians/representatives whose individual contribution is so much better than what the average citizen would do. There are no strong politicians in europe (barring autocrats) or in the US (which was until recently led by a cartoonish bully and now by someone who is in obvious cognitive decline), and for decades, it is pollsters that run the show.
One issue is that current states have accumulated too much power . A second one is that individual rights need to be untouchable. But otherwise i think our current representative systems are just fertile grounds for corruption.
The second issue is why I think we won't see our societies self led until we have technology that can prevent tirany of the majority. This has been an issue with democracy as long as it has existed, Socrates is one of the victims of this system.
Because what is to prevent 66% of the population voting that you be publicly dismembered? This would be perfectly democratic.
And if you think this is some unreasonable edge case you must remember that humans are beings guided by emotion as much as reason, the whole COVID panic and hysteria that happened just two years ago has enough examples that emotion will trump reason even in situations that aren't even that dire.
My theory is that technology will get us there eventually (direct democracy), and we'll get closer to a better, more functional and more inclusive society than the modern representative democracies which are starting to show their massive shortcomings.
It was a stroke of genius to call what we have now in most of the world "democracy", as in "government by the people", when it's anything but that.
I am not sure that’s going to happen. Most of the people does not care about choices. They just want to have comfortable life without worries.
Another thing is that people must feel that their participation does have an effect.
One more aspect is that most of the decisions is not a popularity vote but must be based on knowledge and science. Average people can’t make that choices unless you have extremely well educated population.
Overall, a simple introduction of a technology which will enable more direct democracy is not enough. We need more ground work which will promote individuals with certain values and behaviors.
However, I also do believe that introducing such technology might accelerate that ground work.
However, until we get there, the current system is quite good at maintaining a stable society with increasing gains in technological development and social welfare. It is far from perfect or ideal, and it is full of lies, but until we have something better that is tangible and real, and not just theoretical, I wouldn't touch it.
We share the same hope for the future, but I do not think our current "democracies" are quite good, as you say. I think they're terrible, and the alternatives are even worse.
Sadly we don't have anything to replace them with at the moment, and we're just a hair away from some societal and political event to convince people that this very charismatic leader has all the answers and we should vote for them.
Maybe my standards are too low but the fact that we don't have societal wide unrest, mass murders, famine, revolutions and the like that was pretty common just 100 years ago is good enough to provide for an environment where scientific and technological progress can happen.
We have enjoyed 70 years of peace in this corner of the world, but I wouldn't say we've solved the government problem. Give it a couple centuries first, but seeing how the post-war enthusiast has turned into unrest and widening inequality even in this side of the world, I think this peace is "just a phase".
It's hard to see it (and admit it to oneself) because of recency bias and thinking this time it'll be different, that we're smarter than our ancestors but history tends to repeat itself.
One of the important questions is where to put the line beyond which humans should be independent of their neighbors. E.g. what democracy is not able to touch.
Most people would reject the idea of a city voting what everyone's compulsory dinner will be. But when it comes to zoning and building codes, that's already grey area.
Or did you mean something else?